Category: open pedagogical practices

RSS IS Awesome

Leigh

I’ve found myself recently pining for the open social media days of yore – del.icio.us, Flickr, original Twitter – (I feel there is more to discuss on that in another post!) Once Google Reader died (10 years ago now!), my RSS/blog reading died along with it.  With Twitter also dying, I’ve been searching for ways to (re)connect. A few days ago, a solution appeared – an AMAZING tool that came across my Mastodon feed (speaking of searching for open spaces) called RSS is Awesome.

What is RSS is Awesome? From the website:

The RSS is Awesome feed reader is a in-progress passion project by me, Tom Hazledine, and I’m working on it a lot right now (as of late-July 2023).

Features

-All state stored in your browser – no server (and so no costs!)
-Add RSS and Atom feeds with a feed URL
-Sort feeds into Groups
-Filter items by read/unread
-New items are highlighted when feeds refresh
-Mark items as read/unread
-Dark mode and light mode support
-Responsive layout

I have to say -so far, I LOVE IT! It’s one of the first tabs I open and has (re)oriented me to spaces I haven’t visited in a while. I’m still adding more as I go and remember – so please – add your RSS feed below! I have to fiddle with the URLs sometimes to get the feed to work, but, it’s usually still buried in there somewhere!

 

Clean interface of web based RSS reader.

Catching Up & Documenting All the Things

Leigh
A slide with a picture of Leigh along side text that says Recognition Integrating Scholarship with Service

Oy, it’s November and the lack of a post since June is an indication that it has been a whirlwind of a few months.  In an effort to use this space for documentation of artifacts for annual review, I’ll post a few highlights from the semester (so I have them officially archived!)

I started out the semester with a very nice surprise, I was named a recipient of the MLFTC Integrating Scholarship with Service Award. This was completely unexpected and was a wonderful way to start the semester.

A slide with a picture of Leigh along side text that says Recognition Integrating Scholarship with Service

This semester I’ve been teaching a hybrid version of TEL 713 (Qualitative Methods in Action Research) and it has been such a change to be back in the classroom “real time” – after the semester is over I’ll put myself on the hook for a blogpost reflecting on the experience (hopefully the picture gives some indication of the joy in the experience.)

Picture of a class of 16 adults, from different backgrounds.

I was able to attend the 2022 CPED Convening in person this year after helping to orchestrate the past two virtual sessions. Additionally, I was the faculty coordinator for the 3rd Annual CPED Scholarly Practitioner Research Forum. Working with the student co-chairs Matt Rice and April Lovett was a true joy.  I also was able to present with dear colleagues from ASU and DCU – so much joy!

5 scholars - 4 women on left and one man on right in front of slide presentation.

Here are the slides from our presentation: Fostering and Maintaining International Collaborations for Student Development

Finally, In late October I facilitated a (virtual) presentation with the great folx at UNC Charlotte titled Exploring the Pedagogical Landscape of Trust and Fairness (slides):

I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things, but, I think this helps me get caught up on a few things before more time slips away!

 

Catching Up & Documenting All the Things

Leigh

As of late I primarily use my blog to document presentations and publications (to help with my annual review process) – and I’m behind (like pretty much everyone I know living through the pandemic.) I have a handful of reflective blog posts started, but, they’re not ready to publish yet. So, before too much time slips away, here is documentation of quite a few things (that I’ll need to add to my review document at the end of the year!)

Presentations

ICTEDU – May 15, 2021 (Ireland, Virtual)

I was honored to Keynote the 2021 ICTEDU conference. My talk was titled “I’m not complaining, I’m just explaining…Reflecting on Teaching and Learning: Effective Practices and Processes in a Pandemic/” The title is an homage to my dear grandmother. My slides can be found below (and I’ll link to the recording when it is available.)

Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED)

I am still actively involved in CPED.  Along with Dr. Danah Henriksen I am co-leading the Dissertation in Practice CPED Improvement Group (CIG). In June we (re)launched the CIG – slides are below.

Service

I am the faculty co-advisor for the CIE Journal along with Dr. Josephine Marsh.  The students published an issue in May and they also worked very hard to get indexed by the DOAJ. (This work was spearheaded by Ivonne Lujano.)

I was the coordinator for the 2021 ASU EdD Doctoral Research Conference (we had almost 200 students present this year!)

I am the faculty advisor for the 2021 Scholarly Practitioner Forum and I am a member of the 2021 Convening Committee.

Publications 

I’m delighted to share this (open access) piece written with my dear colleague Ray Buss:

Buss, R. R., & Wolf, L. G. (2021). Building and sustaining community in an online EdD program. Impacting Education: Journal on Transforming Professional Practice, 6(3), 47–53. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.192

I was also approached by OneHE to create a course around improving feedback in asynchronous course environments and the course was launched in August. (You must sign into view the course.)

Improving Feedback in Asynchronous Online Courses Leigh Graves Wolf Leigh Graves Wolf Feedback in asynchronous online courses is critical as students may have limited opportunities to discuss their work with peers and teachers. This course explores how you can enrich your feedback between tasks and make good use of technology to improve student learning.

Reflecting on COE 691 – Teaching Online: Bringing Theory to Practice

Leigh

This past fall I had the privilege of teaching an online doctoral seminar – on teaching online. I’ve been sitting on a reflective blog post for quite a while, and, just want to get something out in the digital ether before I look at the clock and it’s fall 2021!

Here is the syllabus and schedule from the course. We developed the course and topics as we went week by week – and it was terrifying.  I’ve been accustomed to set content for the past three years in the online teaching I’ve been doing with the EdD program (and when I taught MAET online.) While there is room for spontaneity and flexibility with set content, it is a great comfort to know week to week, module to module where we are headed. (I honestly never thought I would find so much comfort in that mode.) Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t allow me to rest on my laurels, but provides much needed stability and structure. Eliminating that structure, during a pandemic, caused me quite a bit of stress.  With that said, I could not have asked for a better group of scholars to learn from and with.  They all embraced and welcomed the unknown directions and ultimately each found ways to connect to the content and the course. (For example, Mikey Hall created a fantastic assignment and site for his English 101 course (which you can visit here.)

There are lots of other posts that I could (and probably should) write – but – for now, I got something up here to share! Hopefully the schedule (which contains all of the readings) will be helpful for others. If not open source, the links go to ASU Library resources, but, should not be hard to find via other library systems.

I also have to give a special shout out to our amazing ASU education librarian Linda DeFato – she was instrumental in helping us get full online access to the following books via the library that came out as the seminar was being delivered:

Bayne, S. (2020). The Manifesto for Teaching Online. The MIT Press.

Blum, S., & Kohn, A. (2020). Ungrading: Why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead). West Virginia University Press.

Special Issue: Educational Technology in Higher Education: Emergent Practices for Teaching Future Educators

Leigh

Picture of Leigh & Linda I’m delighted to announce that the special issue of Special Issue of UTE. Universitas Tarraconensis: Revista de Ciències de l’Educació that I co-edited along with the amazing Linda Castañeda, has been published!  The special issue is titled: Educational Technology in Higher Education: Emergent Practices for Teaching Future Educators.

Our editorial (Tecnología educativa en la educación superior: prácticas emergentes para la enseñanza de futuros educadores – Educational Technology in Higher Education: Emergent Practices for Teaching Future Educators), can be found here (in both Spanish and English.) 

The issue features fantastic pieces from: Victoria I. Marín, Sara Lorena Villagra Sobrino, Iván Manuel Jorrín Abellán, Ainara Zubillaga del Río, Elia María Fernández Díaz, Lorea Fernández Olaskoaga, Prudencia Gutiérrez Esteban, Víctor Abella García, Cornelia Connolly, Sean O Gorman, Tony Hall, Raquel Hijón-Neira, Jodie Donner, Melissa Warr, Sean M Leahy, Punya Mishra, Gemma Tur, and Urith Ramírez-Mera.

Linda and I have been talking about working together for ages and I’m so thankful we finally had the opportunity to do so here! This was challenging work for all given the pandemic, yet, we all persevered and the issue was published on schedule! I would like to sincerely thank all of the authors for contributing, the reviewers for reviewing, and to Linda for sharing this opportunity with me. We have the ball rolling and I look forward to many more collaborations ahead!

Radical Nervousness (and some Openness too)

Leigh

A few short weeks ago, the amazing Angela Gunder asked me if I could lend some time to the upcoming OLC Ideate event, and, of course I said yes – I would do anything for you Angela! Then fast forward another week or so and I found myself co-hosting an OLC Ideate Salon along with these amazing folx: Maren Deepwell, Robin DeRosa, Gerry Hanley, & Rajiv Jhangiani.

Here was our salon description:

Radical Openness
Community Salons are the opportunity for a group of thought leaders to engage participants in rich discussions around a broad topic intersecting with their scholarship and outreach. This salon brings together champions of open education and pedagogy sharing perspectives and guiding activities around the topic of radical openness, with a special focus on the ways that we can open doors for learners that are often hidden or closed to their success. Come with your ideas, challenges, and questions on the topic of openness, and take part in building new knowledge around open practices that will sustain us through and past these challenging times

I have to be honest, I was nervous. We didn’t have much time to prepare (end of semester + global pandemic.) Angela suggested that we repurpose an activity that I ran a few months back at OERizona. I’m so thankful she did, I’m not sure any of us had the extra brainpower or time to create something completely new.  However, I was surprised at how embarrassed(?) and uncomfortable I was repurposing my own work. I share everything openly, with the intent of it being reused, remixed, and recycled – why did this feel so uncomfortable?

As I started out the session, using the prompts that were reworked from the OERizona, I had a bit more internal panic. That session had been very strategically created to be inclusive of the in-person AND virtual/remote audience. More often than not, virtual audiences are usually a second thought (if at all) and I wanted to very purposefully make sure everyone felt 100% included in the activity.  I realized, very quickly, that I had not thought out how this would play out with a 100% online audience. I made a few adjustments on the fly to the timing and luckily I was co-leading with the most incredible people I could imagine, and they/we were able to adjust and create a robust discussion. (Mareen wrote this wonderful post as a follow up.) I just wish I had thought about how to be more inclusive of the 100% online audience in this scenario.

I’ve been trying not to get too down about it, realizing that the criticism and pressure is 100% self-imposed (we are in the middle of a pandemic) and trying to tell myself exactly what I tell my students and friends in these situations.  We are often our own worst critics. But, I also think I need to work more at sharing vulnerability and honesty. It’s ok to be self-critical, it’s ok that everything isn’t 100% perfect.

Now that that is off my chest – please check out the remaining days of OLC Ideate.  It’s a spectacular/stellar/exemplary model for how to run a synchronous online experience. As a teaser, here’s Angela’s recap of Day #4:

Teaching Qualitative Methods Online: A Few Things That I Do

Leigh

I’ve been teaching qualitative methods online since Fall 2018 – with 3 ½ semesters under my belt here are some things that I do/know! I know many of you are being asked to switch online with very short notice.  Know this, first, I’ve been doing this for a very long time. Second, I have tremendous technical and instructional design support at ASU. I can’t imagine being asked to do this with very little notice (in some cases less than 2 hours notice.) or support. Also, I can’t imagine sharing all that I know in a tweet, or even this blog post. So, I’ll do my best here to give you a few key tips. This post is not as link-laden as my normal posts, trying to churn this out quickly as a response to this Twitter thread. 

Accessibility & humanity:  

These two words guide my practice, online and offline.  Full stop. 

Here are the technologies I use to mediate the course:

  • Canvas (basic tools: pages, discussion forums) 
  • Zoom (cloud recording) 
  • Google Docs 
  • Slack 

Library resources: 

My class is a textbook-zero course. If your institution has access to SAGE Research Methods – get on there now. There are a TON of high quality resources there that I (and my students) rely on daily. 

Here are some of the instructional strategies I use: 

“Hybrid” weekly discussion forums

I’m not the biggest fan of discussion forums (students are not either.) When I took over this class I was very intrigued by a method the prior instructor (Dr. Mirka Koro) used for weekly discussion.  She had the students post questions on the weekly readings and she would respond via a video.  I loved this idea, continued to iterate upon it, and this has become a keystone of the course (and student evaluations confirm this as an important and valued part of the course.)  The weekly video/podcast run from 30-45 minutes (and I haven’t had a complaint about the length, as students can listen at 2x playback if they wish!) I use Zoom cloud recording which provides automatic transcription and the ability to download the audio only (thus a podcast.) Student appreciate the ability to watch OR listen (as many commute and listen on drives.) 

Questions are due on Thursday and on Friday morning I copy and paste all of the questions, collapse and organize into a logical flow (many questions cluster) and then I record “off the cuff” – I want this to mimic class discussion as much as possible, and I want the students to know that I don’t know everything about everything – I have to look things up too.  Students report being valued and listened to and feel a high sense of instructor presence. 

PLAY notebook (google doc) 

The play notebook is a version of this assignment (that I’ve been using for almost 10 years!) This is a space where I can see their thinking, they can play with and apply ideas. For example, we are about to embark on a document analysis. I’m asking them to think through things step by step, articulate their planning and eventually they’ll be sharing screenshots of coding and code books, etc.  This is a private safe space (shared only between me, my teaching partner and the student) where we can talk with each other, they can make mistakes, and have successes. 

Slack sharing 

Given my feelings about discussion forums, I have played with different tools – last semester I used YellowDig, this semester the institution has implemented Slack and I’ve been using that as our shared/social space. It’s used strategically, and students are prompted to use it as a sharing mechanism with/for each other.  I’m very happy that many have used to contact me synchronously when we are both online so I could provide just in time support on assignments/questions. 

Weekly Patterns: 

My course has the following patterns: Uncover, Question, Play, Connect, and Apply

UNCOVER (read) – You will be asked to experience course “readings” in this section. Readings will include text, audio, video – items you “consume.” There will be core readings which are required and explore readings which give you a chance to learn more about your individual areas of interest. 

QUESTION – This is a critical component of the course. Each week, the instructor will review the question discussion forum and create a weekly introduction video answering the questions. The questions can be specific to your course readings, methods, etc. It’s an opportunity to add a conversational tone to the course. 

PLAY – This assignment is facilitated using a Google Doc. The same Google Doc will be used for the entire semester, resulting in a “notebook” of ideas and thoughts at the end of the semester. Each week an assignment or prompt will be presented in Canvas which gives you an opportunity to play with new concepts. These are formative assignments and are iterative in nature. The instructor(s) will provide feedback and commentary to you in your Google Doc and you are expected to respond to the feedback/comments. 

CONNECT – This component is a varied collection of experiences which you connect to each other, or ideas in an open and collaborative way. The activities will vary in content and will be mediated via varied technologies (e.g. Flipgrid, Slack, Zoom meetings.) 

APPLY – there are three summative “APPLY” assignments – there will be weekly milestones which step you toward the “apply” assignment. The APPLY assignments are: 

APPLY #1 – Theoretical Framework Mapping & Epistemological Musings (due Week 5) 

APPLY #2 – Book Review (due Week 10) 

APPLY #3 – Revisit Dissertation Proposal through the lens of TEL 713 (due Week 15) 

Twitter 

I use this primarily for MYSELF – I’ve learned so much by following my ASU Colleague Dr. Sarah Tracey, (who is an expert in qualitative methods) https://twitter.com/SarahJTracy. And I know over the coming weeks, this will be one of the primary mechanisms for sharing and supporting each other. 

That’s a lot to take in – happy to help answer any additional questions.

Open Pedagogy Reflection: Creating a Zero Textbook Cost course (with a little help from Library Reading Lists)…and I got a grant!

Leigh
screenshot of leigh on youtube

At the end of last fall I had the opportunity to revise a course I teach TEL 713: Advanced Qualitative Methods.  I inherited an incredible course, and learned a lot through the eyes of the previous instructor – but, as with all online courses, a regular update and revision was warranted. One of my goals in the revision was to create a Zero Textbook Cost course. If you google “Zero Textbook Cost” you’ll see lots of initiatives (associated with Open Educational Resources/OER movements) to create not only courses, but, entire degree programs using open or free resources.  (I should also put in a little plug here that open education movements include things beyond texts, and include being open and transparent about educational practices (with things like this blog post!))

Using a combination of “true” OER and relying heavily on ASU Library online resources, the course is now a “textbook zero” course.  As I was redesigning, I received a serendipitous email from the libraries announcing a new tool called “Reading Lists” which integrated into our new LMS (Canvas.) I was very excited by this and jumped right into explore. It’s an incredibly easy to use too and is useful for the student (all course resources (the tool allows multimodal text) in one spot), faculty (analytics on use of resources, easy to copy from semester to semester) and the library (they get usage statistics and can make sure your course resources are accessible.) As an added open bonus, I can share my reading list across the entire ASU network, so, other instructors (and students) can see what we’re reading and learning.

The library recently created this LibGuide resource so you can learn more about the Reading List feature: https://libguides.asu.edu/readinglists. I was very happy to respond to a request to make a video to share how I’m using the list in my class, and how we’re using it in the EdD program to create a repository of all of our student dissertations.

While this feature is called “Reading Lists” at ASU, it’s also called Leganto at other universities, so, if you too are interested, you may want to check with your amazing university librarian to see if they have a similar technology to manage course reserves. Unfortunately, to see my lists as intended you have to be authenticated through ASU (certainly a limit to the open-ness of this) – but you can export to pdf, word, etc. – so you can click here to get a feel for the list in pdf form. That link takes you to an “APA formatted” export. In scare quotes, because you’ll see the APA is FAR from perfect (which is a plug for putting in better meta-data!)

I’m excited to dig into this more – and to share that I received a mini grant from the Office of Scholarship and Innovation in May to purchase MAXQDA to study this more in depth! The grant award announcement is below.

The final mini grant of the semester was awarded to Leigh Wolf. In May, Wolf received funding support for a qualitative analysis software that she will be using to research the use and effects of Open Educational Resources in the Educational Leadership and Innovation EdD program. For this research, she is collaborating with ASU Libraries and will be analyzing data from student interviews, course syllabi, and social media analytics. As a bonus, Wolf is also able to use the qualitative software for teaching advanced qualitative methods in the EdD program with free licenses provided to the students in her course.